Plovers Washed Out

Last week's storms washed away many of New Jersey's piping plover nests.

• 14 of 21 nests monitored by the Conserve Wildlife Foundation were destroyed.
• 2 nests at Long Branch lost half their eggs.
• 9 nests were washed out at Sandy Hook, 2 nests were flooded but still being incubated, and 2 nests were unaffected.
• 1 nest in Holgate was washed out.

It is still early enough in the breeding season that piping plovers can try nesting again. Storms are one of many threats that piping plovers face. Others include predators, fireworks, harassment from beachgoers, and being run over by trucks.

Something's missing

A short-tailed (common) grackle at the birdbath.

Most birds molt feathers a few at a time, so that no group is entirely unrepresented at any given time. I suspect that this grackle lost its tail in a narrow escape from a predator, possibly a neighborhood cat.

Loose Feathers #150

Yellow Warbler Attends to the Nest / Photo by Fred Deines (USFWS)

Bird news and links

• Phalaropes use water's surface tension to forage. They spin their bodies to stir up small crustaceans. They then open and close their bills rapidly so that water's natural surface tension drives the prey into their mouths.
  
• A major wildfire in the Everglades threatens habitat for the endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow.
• Portions of southeastern Ohio are being reforested to provide future habitat for ceruleans warblers.
• A new study suggests that human vision is inadequate for assessing what birds see. The finding has implications for studies of sexual selection in birds. Among other things, birds can see colors in the UV range that are invisible to humans.
  
• Up to 3,000 eggs and hatchlings of a white-faced ibis colony were destroyed by harvesters in a single incident in California.
  
• Developers have backed down from plans to install a soda ash factory at Lake Natron, but they still plan to extract soda ash from the lake and process it at a new factory 22 miles away. The development threatens the lake's population of lesser flamingos.
• Last weekend's storms heavily eroded beaches along Delaware Bay, right in the middle of shorebird migration. Any horseshoe crab eggs that were already laid have probably been washed away.
• The RSPB warns against feeding birds with bread, which does not give them sufficient nutrition.
  

Birds in the blogosphere

• Drawing the Motmot: Bird-Drawing Tip: Get Familiar
• Birdchaser: Top 10 ways to be a better birder
• BES Group: Where do birds go when they die?
• Bay Area Bird Blog: Companies Behaving Badly: Roadway Express at MLK Jr Shoreline
• Behind the Bins: Lunch with a Great Egret
  

Environmental news and blogging

• According to the Zoological Society of London, we are in the midst of one of the world's great extinction events. Populations of the world's wildlife species have fallen between one quarter and one third since 1970.
• Climate change is already having major impacts even with only one degree Celsius in average temperature rise. A study of 829 physical systems and 28,800 living organisms found changes consistent with global warming in 95% of the physical systems and 90% of the living organisms.
  
• Once again, the Senate blocked an attempt to open Arctic NWR for drilling.
• Brazil's environment minister resigned after losing several major fights to prevent deforestation of the Amazon.
  

Carnivals and newsletters

• Friday Ark #191
  
• Oekologie #16
• I and the Bird #75
• Tangled Bank #105
  
• Birds in the News #130
  

I and the Bird

I and the Bird #75 is online at Gallicissa.

Polar Bears to Be Threatened

The Interior Department has decided to list the polar bear as a threatened species. It is the first species to be listed under the Endangered Species Act due to the threat of climate change. This is also the first listing announced since Kempthorne became Secretary of Interior in 2006. (Remember, the department has changed the rules so that species have to meet an excessively high standard to be listed.)

Today's decision cites the loss of Arctic sea ice as a cause of the polar bear's decline in recent years. Government studies predict that two-thirds of the polar bear population could disappear by mid century. Still, Kempthorne doesn't want anyone to get any crazy ideas:

But the designation will come with a qualifier: an administrative letter that will have conditions to "keep from harming the economy."

Kempthorne said that the Endangered Species Act shouldn't be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and that the listing will not "set backdoor climate policy."

"That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA," Kempthorne said.

"This listing will not stop global climate change or prevent sea ice from melting."

Without such regulation of emissions, it remains to be seen what practical effect this listing will have.

Update: It appears that the polar bear is not the first listed species whose decline is caused by climate change. Press releases from 2006 cite warmer ocean temperatures as a reason for listing elkhorn and staghorn corals, two Caribbean species.

Riverside Park Hawk Nestlings Dead

In the comments on a previous post, a reader linked an article about the apparent death of three red-tailed hawk fledglings in Riverside Park (NY).

The body of only one young hawk — or eyas — has been recovered so far. The city’s avid bird-watchers have confirmed that the other two babies are not in their West Side nest and are feared dead as well.

“It’s so devastating,” said Dr. Leslie Day, who recovered the body of one of the chicks on Sunday and kept it refrigerated to preserve it.

On Monday morning, Dr. Day, a naturalist who teaches at the Elisabeth Morrow School and the Bank Street College of Education, gave the body to a friend, the photographer Lincoln Karim. Mr. Karim planned to drive to Delmar, N.Y., near Albany, and turn the corpse over to Ward B. Stone, who runs the Wildlife Pathology Unit of the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Mr. Stone was expected to perform a necropsy to determine the cause of death.

Over the past few days, there has been a running discussion on the fate of the Riverside Park hawks at the Pale Male Irregulars blog. The latest post reports that the necropsy indicated that the recovered chick died from acute lung hemorrhage. That suggests the hawks ingested rat poison, but the chick still needs to be tested for toxins to confirm this suspicion. The Urban Hawks blog, which first mentioned the potential nest failure at Riverside, has photos of the three Riverside eyasses while they were still alive. I expect that both blogs will post about the tests as results become available. Readers who are interested in following the story should check there for updates.

Update: The Riverside Park hawk nest fell down, and birders recovered the remaining two dead nestlings and sent them to Audubon for testing.

McCain on the Environment

Some readers might be interested in this review of McCain's environmental record. In terms of voter scorecards he does not register very well. According to the article, the League of Conservation Voters gives him a 24% lifetime score. (Clinton and Obama both get an 86% lifetime score.) Scores alone are of limited usefulness since they mask individual priorities and (to some extent) the machinations necessary to pass legislation. So it helps to delve into the details.

The senator from Arizona has been resolute in his quest to impose a federal limit on greenhouse gas emissions, even when it means challenging his own party. But he has also cast votes against tightening fuel-efficiency standards and resisted requiring public utilities to offer a specific amount of electricity from renewable sources. He has worked to protect public lands in his home state, winning a 2001 award from the National Parks Conservation Association for helping give the National Park Service some say over air tours around the Grand Canyon, work that prompts former interior secretary and Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt to call him "a great friend of the canyon." But he has also pushed to set aside Endangered Species Act protections when they conflict with other priorities, such as the construction of a University of Arizona observatory on Mount Graham....

"Look, he always balances what are the environmental implications of these enterprises and what are the economic benefits that could come from them," Holtz-Eakin said. "That is, in general, an approach which may be harder to read than a flat ideological X or Y, but it's how he reads these things, it's how he evaluates these kinds of decisions." ...

For the most part, McCain follows a fairly instinctive approach to deciding environmental questions. In recent interviews he has said he thinks the government should list polar bears as endangered because shrinking sea ice threatens their survival, that sharks deserve protection because they're a crucial part of the marine food web, and that the nation needs to act on climate change because it risks an environmental catastrophe if it doesn't.

The senator does not boast an extensive staff of experts on these issues, however, and doesn't delve into the scientific and policy details the way former vice president Al Gore or some of his Senate colleagues do. In one conversation on his "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus, he voiced his frustration with activists who oppose nuclear power plants....

As a result, many advocates said they remain uncertain as to how McCain would tackle environmental issues if elected president this fall. They are still waiting to see whether he will vote in favor of Lieberman's latest climate bill, which is headed to the Senate next month.

The article seems to have run in preparation for a speech on environmental policy that McCain is giving today. Here is a preview.

My impression in reading these is that McCain is not as outrightly hostile to the environment as some other members of his party, but that conservation is not a strong priority. Time will tell if that impression is correct. Unfortunately, coverage of the candidates' plans has been limited, with few questions on climate change and conservation during debates and interviews. Better coverage would give us a better sense how candidates would handle environmental protection.

See also his advisor's op-ed.